Juno & Juliet by Julian Gough

Author:Julian Gough [Gough, Julian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307486691
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2001-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

45

“But it’s on special offer,” said David.

“Great, six hundred and fifty grams for the price of the usual five hundred. It’s still dearer per gram than Super-Valu’s own brand, which is frankly just as good. You’re paying for the name.”

“Oh God, this isn’t shopping, this is mathematics. I just can’t do all those calculations in my head.”

“Shopping is mathematics,” I said, in a fair parody of him at his most serious. “And put those down.”

“What? But these are the cheapest.”

“You’re buying air. They wind the rolls loose and puff the pack wrapper full of air to keep it firm. You’ll never save money buying the cheapest toilet rolls. They last no time, and it’s not worth it for the annoyance of having them run out constantly”

“So what do you recommend?”

“Steal the industrial-sized ones from the lecturers’ toilets like I do.”

“Jesus, do you?”

“Well, they don’t padlock the toilet-roll holders in the lecturers’ toilets,” I explained, breaking character. “The toilet roll in the student toilets comes out of a thing like a small fallout shelter bolted to the wall. I think they have to cut it open with a welding torch when they want to put in a new roll. Maybe it’s different in the boys’ toilets.”

He shook his head. “No, I know the dispensers you mean.”

“Well, I raid the Arts tower. History usually, it’s the easiest. They just leave these enormous rolls on the cistern.… You don’t mind, do you?” I said, suddenly anxious.

“Christ, no, fascinated.”

“I never take the last roll.”

“Very Christian of you.”

“It’s just that we don’t have any money, really, or not enough. I can’t ask our parents for more.”

“We?”

“My sister Juno and I.” I’d have said me and Juno if it had been anyone else. Now that the conversation was about something real, albeit stupid, I was anxious again. I didn’t want him to disapprove of me, but I didn’t want to fib either. “My twin.”

I was surprised to realise I must never have mentioned her to him before, that to him I was unique. How strange, that he only knew me. How … incomplete? No. Misleading. Or was it? My being Juno’s twin was such a constant that I couldn’t get a clear picture of its importance.

“Cheese,” he said. I pretended to take a photograph. “No, I’ve remembered we need cheese.”

“We?” I said in my turn, pleased he hadn’t asked about Juno, hadn’t said, “And is she just like you?”

“My father and I,” he said.

I blushed as though reprimanded.

“Oh, of course,” I said.

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